A biographical history of central Kansas, Vol. II, Part 41

Author: Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York Chicago: The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084

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Politically Mr. Schmitt was formerly a Republican and has been more recently a P nulist. He has been a school director since the school district including his home was formed, and for some years has filled the office of township clerk. He is a deac n and a trustee in the Mennonite church an 1 for nine years perf riedl the duties of Sun- day-school superintendent. In all ways he has demonstrated that he is a man of public speri: wh has at his heart the best interests of his community. The silver wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Schmitt was celebrated Or-

tober 15, 1901, and was a most enjoyable affair, promoted by their daughters and ether relatives in such a nadmier that it was a genuine surprise to Mr. and Mrs. Selimit: and to some of their guests. The company numbered forty-five and included many of their kinsfolk and neighbors, who vetel the occasion a mest happy and interesting one and a family and social event leng to le re- membered, and left with their good wishes many substantial silver tokens.

EMMA J. TASKER.

Mrs. Emma J. Tasker, a daughter of the late well known citizen. George A. Elli- ott, was born in Wabash county, Indiana. on the 27th of September, 1865. She was but six years of age when she came to the Sunflower state, and on the old homestead farm she grew to womanhood and has ever since resided. She enjoyed the educational advantages afforded by the common set .1s of Logan township, and in her early youth she assisted her mother in the household duties, her time being thus occupied until her marriage, which occurred on the 17th of January. 1887, to Alfred H. Tasker. The latter was born in Horicon, Wisconsin, in 1862, and his death occurred in February, 1901. when only thirty-nine years of age. He was a son of James and Lydia ( Hile- ) Tasker. natives of England. The father died in Montgomery county, Kansas, and the mother was called to her final rest in 1892. They have one son now living. Will- iam Horatio Tasker. At his death Alfred H. Tasker left a widow and six children. namely: Archie W., Russell E .. Harold L., Lester H., Agnes E. and Alfred H., Jr. Mr. Tasker resided for some years in Gove county, Kansas, where he homesteaded and took a timber claim. He then sold that land and moved to Ottawa county. In his social relations he was a member of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fell ws and i the Sons and Daughters of Justice. Hi- [ liti- cal support was given to the Republican par- ty. He was loved and honored by all who

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knew him, and in his death the community lost one of its valued and influential citi- zens. His widow now resides upon the old Elliott homestead, where she owns two hun- dred and forty acres of fertile and well im- proved land. She is a good business woman, a kind and considerate neighbor and a faithful and loving mother. She has ever discharged her duties with unwavering faithfulness, and she and her family are numbered among the most highly esteemed citizens of Ottawa county and share in the hospitality of many of its best homes.

CHRISTIAN KREHBIEL.

The subject of this sketch, the Rev. Christian Krehbiel, is a farmer on section I. Lakin township. Harvey county, Kansas, and his post-office is Halstead. He was born at Pfulz, Germany, October 18. 1832. reared on his father's farm of one hundred acres and educated in the thorough German way in the public schools near his home. At the age of eighteen years he came to America with his parents and their family of ten chil- dren .- six sons and four daughters.

John Krehbiel. the third, the father of the subject of this sketch, married Katharine Krehbiel, a distant relative. The fam- ily came to the United States on board a sailing vessel which consumed thirty- five days in making the voyage from its German port to New York. From New York they went to Ashland county, Ohio, where they remained during the winter of 1850-51. and from there they went to Lee county. Jowa, where Mr. . Krehbiel bought one hundred and ten acres of land on which some improvements had been made. There the father died in 1853. aged fifty-six years.

The subject of this sketch, the second son and child of his parent's family, has a fam- ily record running far back into the past, from which it appears that his earliest known ancestor. Jost Krehbiel, and his wife Mag- dalena went to Germany from Switzerland! in 1772, and that his grandfather, Jacob

Krehbiel, his great-grandfather, Johannes Krehbiel, and his great-great-grandfather, Christian Krehbiel, were all born on the same farm in Weierhof, Pfulz, Germany. It is interesting to note in this connection that the old family farm in Germany, which consisted of only one hundred acres, was there regard- ed as a large farm, while Mr. Krehbiel. own- ing two sections, twelve hundred and forty acres, in Kansas, puts forth no pretentions to being a wealthy landowner. This dis- tinetion does not indicate a difference in per- sommal character so much as a difference in experience and environment. Six of the children of John Krehbiel are living and. of his sons three, including the subject of this sketch, became ministers of the gospel. The eldest born, the Rev. Jacob Krehbiel, died in Illinois, leaving two sons and six or seven daughters. Daniel, a retired merchant and farmer, lives at Mound Ridge, Kansas. Mary died in Lee county, Iowa. Catharine is living unmarried in the same county. Bar- bara married Herman Krehbiel, a relative of her family and lives in Reno county. Kan- sas. John died in Iowa. Susan still lives in Lee county, that state. The Rev. Valen- tine Krehbiel lives at Mound Ridge, Kansas. Peter is a citizen of Halstead township, Har- vey county, this state. The mother of these children survived her husband until 1870, when she was sixty-nine years old. She is buried at Summerfield, Illinois, her husband in the Zion Mennonite cemetery at Franklin, Lee county, Iowa.

The Rev. Christian Krehbiel remained on the family homestead until he was twenty years old and married Susan A. Ruth, Mister of John W. Ruth, a biographical sketch of whom appears in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Krehbiel began their domestic life as farmers in Lee county, Iowa, on the farm of David Ruth. Two years later, March, 1860 they moved to St. Clair county, Illinois, where Mr. Krehbiel became the owner of a forty- acre farm, which he sold, buying another farm of one hundred acres, which in time he sold in order to buy still another farm of the same size. He and his wife were among the first Mennonite settlers in St. Clair county, Illinois, and there Mr. Krehbiel began his

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ministerial labors, which were continued there during a past rate of fifteen years. He first came to Kansas in 1873 on a pros- pecting tour and helped to buy, three sections of land near Marion Center for Jaoch and Peter Fank. In the fall and winter of that year he and , there neg tiated to contract for the purchase of some thirty thousand acres of railroad land in Kansas and an option on forty thousand acres more in the same state. These lands he later bought for fifty- six per cent. less than the prices on the laks. March 16, 1879. he settled on a half sec- tin of land in Halstead township, which he had la ught at four of Mars an acre, and, as has been stated, he is now the owner of two sections, one of which is in Harvey county. the other in MePherson county.

Mr. Krehbiel brought out to Kansas a party of fifty or sixty settlers. He had built his first house in Kansas and his first barn during the preceeding fall. His house was a small affair. covering a ground space af cighicen by twenty feet, and the sills of his barn Wo unded a square thirty-six feet by thirty-six in size. He at once engaged ex- tensively in general farming and gradually acquired considerable stock. One season he raised seven thousand bushels of wheat and four thousand bushels of corn, and in 1901 he and his sons sowed four hundred acres with wheat and harvested nine thousand Bushels. His present residence covers a ground space of thirty by twenty feet in its principal structure and has two extensions eighteen by twenty-eight feet and sixteen by twenty-eight feet in area respec- tively. The whole building is the stories high, and there is a cellar under all parts of it. He has another house on his home farm. overing a gr. und space of thirty-six by thirty-six feet, which he built for an Indian sche Wand which ke maintained as such at his own expense from 18SA to Ison, and from which the last scholar departe In 1901. Since 1806, Mr. Krelling has used the build- ing for the purposes of a home for white orphans. He owns five acres of forest trees including cette nw. d. box elder, mulberry, elm, coffee nut. catalpa, locust and kick ry trees and one acre which has a guel

growth of maple trees. He has four hun- drul apple-trees and many peach, pear, plum, quince and cherry trees. St rapid was his work in this direction that within three years after he settled on the Lare prairie he was literally living in the midst of a forest. On his different farms he has four entire sets of farm buildings, and without regard to expense he has provided himself with every appliance and facility necessary to success- ful farming on a large scale.

The Rev. Christian and Susan A. ( Ruth ) Krehbiel were married March 14. 1858, and became the parents of sixteen children, twelve of whom grew to maturity. The fol- lowing data concerning some of them will be of interest in this connection : John W. Kreh- biel, born in Illinois, August 10, 1860, has two sons and a daughter. He is a miller and lives in McPherson county, Kansas. The Rev. Henry P. Krehbiel, born in Illinois, April 13, 1862, has one daughter and is the manager of a publishing house in Newton, Kansas. The Rev. Jacob H. Krehbiel born in Illinois, May 7, 1864, has a son and is the pastor of a church at Geary, Blaine county, Oklahoma. Catherine Krehbiel, born in Il- linois, April, 1800, is the wife of II. O. Kruse, who is a professor in Bethel College, Newton, Kansas, and has one son. Daniel Krehbiel, born in Illinois, January 1. 1868. has one daughter. He is the principal of the high school at Newton, Kansas. Christian, born in Illinois. September 25. 1867. is con- nected with the Western Publishing Co .- pany at Newton, Kansas. Susannah Kreh- biel, born in Illinois. June 16, 1871, married Fred Bingleman, of Geary, Blaine county, Oklahoma, and has three children. Bernhard Krehbiel, born in Illinois, March 17, 1873, is the manager of his father's home farm. Martha Krehbiel, born in Illinois. April 18. 18-6. is the wife of Rudolph Wierz. . f Newton, Kansas. Edward Krehbiel, born in Illinois, November 16, 1878, is a student at Lawrence. Kansas. Paul G. Krehbiel, born in Kansas, January 28, 1882. divides his time between school and the family home, as does his brother. Lucas P. Kreh- hiel. who was born in Kansas, March 7. 1885.

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Mr. Krehbiel is not allied with any po- litical organization. For many years he has been the president of the board of missions of the Mennonite church. He is a partner in the Western Publishing Company, at Newton, Kansas, and a stockholder in the Mount Ridge ( Kansas) Milling Company and in another milling company at Geary, Oklahoma. From time to time he has trav- eled in different states as a minister of his church and for many years he has been a leader in the Mennonite movement, and it is safely within the facts to state that he has done more than any other one man toward the establishment of the large and prosper- ous Mennonite settlement in Harvey county. Some idea of the progressive spirit of the man is afforded by the fact that he has an ample irrigating pond for all the uses of his farm and a water supply in his residence which is brought up from the inexhaustible wells by means of the improved windmills. His residence is approached by two drive- ways, each a quarter of a mile long, which extend respectively to the highways running east and west and north and south pass his home, which is pleasantly located. joining Halstead on the southeast.

JOHN LELAND BUCK.

John Leland Buck, cashier of the Sedg- wick State Bank. Sedgwick, Harvey county. Kansas, is one of the younger generation of successful business men, whose enterprise and progressive spirit have made them known throughout central Kansas.

Mr. Buck was born in Auburn. Sanga- mon county, Illinois, May 1, 1863, a son of F. L. Buck, who as a vigorous and well pre- served man is known throughout Harvey county as one of the prosperous farmers of the district round about Sedgwick. F. L. Buck was born at Lowville. Lewis county, New York. August 29. 1828, and came to Kansas in 1877. John Buck, his father, was born in Lanesboro, Massachusetts, in 1797. and died in Auburn, Illinois, in 1880. Ehen- ezer Buck, father of John Buck, and great-

grandfather of John Leland Buck, and Ebenezer Buck, great-great-grandfather of John Leland Buck, were soldiers and patri- ots in the war for American independence. John Buck and his two brothers, one of whom was Chester Buck, were pioneers in Lewis county, New York, to which place they had emigrated from Lanesboro, Massa- chusetts, and being men of enterprise and intellectual force they became not only wealthy but prominent in public life. John Buck and his son F. L. Buck settled early in Sangamon county, Illinois, where the former owned seven hundred acres of good land.

Sarah M. Curtiss, who married F. L. Buck and became the mother of John Leland Buck, was born in the town of West Mar- tinsburg, Lewis county, New York, in 1835, a daughter of Henry Curtiss. Mr. Curtiss, who was a native of Lanesboro, Massachusetts, married a Miss Lyman, who also was born there, and they both died in Lewis county, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Buck were married at Booneville. New York, in 1851, and emigrated to Illinois, in 1854. Their journey to the then far west was a memorable one. Mr. Buck transport- ing horses by way of the lakes and meeting with delays on account of ice, which made his passage from Buffalo to Chicago one of eleven days' duration. The large tract of land in Sangamon county, Illinois, which was bought by Mr. Buck and his father at about ten dollars an acre, is now worth one hundred dollars an acre. In June. 1877, Mr. Buck secured one hundred and sixty acres of land in Sedgwick township. Harvey county, Kansas, to which he brought his family in September following. The farm consisted of unbroken prairie and there were no improvements upon it of any kind. Mr. Buck improved it and put it under a good state of cultivation and sold it early in 1901 for five thousand and six hundred dollars.

F. L. and Sarah M. (Curtiss) Buck reared a son and a daughter. The latter, named Louie C., married Carlton Sawyer, of Sedgwick, Kansas, and the son, who is the immediate subject of this sketch, was educated in public schools in Illinois and

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Kansas, and in 1870 accepted a position as a clerk in the store of Hall & Willey. one of the early mercantile firms at Sedgwick. which he held until 1880, when he went to Illinois, where he remained six months, at- tumling schel in the winter of 1880-81. In 1881 he returned to Sedgwick and became a bookkeeper in the banking office of T. R. Hazard. In the spring of 1884 Mr. Hazard seid the bank and Mr. Buck filled the same 1» sition under Mr. Hazard's successor for a short time and later for a few months he was a bookkeeper and the cashier in the store . i J. M. Massey, a position which he relin- quished because of failing health. He spent the winter of 1884-5 in Florida and New Orleans and returned to Sedgwick much improved. but rested until January, 1886, when he 'became the bookkeeper for the Sedgwick City Bank. In 1894, when the Sedgwick State Bank was organized, he be- came one of its stockholders and its cashier. The large interest of Mr. Hall in this Cop- cern was transferred to Chauncey .1. Sea- man and John Leland Buck in 1891. Mr. Buck is now erecting and furnishing for his parents a pleasant and comfortable house adjeining his own home. He has resided continuously in Sedgwick township since 1877. and whatever success he has acquired has been entirely through his own efforts.

For a short time he was the deputy post- master at Sedgwick, under Postmaster John Wright. He is a Master Mason and is pop- ular in his fraternity; he is also a charter member of Sedgwick Lodge, Knights of Py- thias, of which he is a past chancellor. In politics he is a Republican and he is proud of the fact that he voted for James G. Blaine for president of the United States and twice for the late lamented William Mckinley for the same high office.

June 4. 1891, he married Miss Anna L. Jolinson, who was born at East Walling- ford, Vermont, a daughter of Gilbert and Helen ( Kent) Johnson. Her father at his decease left a widow and three children. Mrs. Buck is an accomplished musicion. both as a vocalist and as an instrumental per- former, and otherwise also has many graces and accomplishments. Happy as is her life

it is saddened by the thought that her is- ther was stricken with paralysis while en his way to Kansas, where it had been his intell- tion to make his home. He was buried in Vermont. Mrs. Buck's brother. D. D. Johnson, is now engaged in the drug business in Sedgwick, while her mother and Sier also reside in Sedgwick.

JOHN R. SWARTLEY.

The prosperous and popular citizen of Halstead township, Harvey county, Kansas, whose name is the title of this sketch, and who is a leading farmer in section 35. with mail connections at Halstead, was Born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, February 25, 1857, and is one of the best known repre- sentatives of the good old Pennsylvania blond in his part of the great Sunflower commonwealth.

Joseph Swartley, father of The R. Swartley, was born in 1827. on the same farm on which the subject of this sketch first saw the light of day, and died at his son's home in Kansas, March 26, 1892, while there on a visit. John Swartley, fa- ther of Joseph and grandfather of John R. Swartley, was born in Pennsylvania ab ut 1796, and died about 1860. His father, the great-grandfather of John R. Swartley, was one of three brothers from Germany wild settled in Pennsylvania, where he adentel the life of a husbandman. Mary Ann Ruth, who married Joseph Swartley anl was the mother of John R. Swartley. died about 1860. in the prime of life. her infant child dying at the same time : and by her death .he left two sons. William Ruth and John R. Swartley, the first mentioned of whom lives in the old Swartley homestead in Pennsyl- vania and has five children. After the dead. of the wife of his youth. Joseph Swartley was twice married and for some time lefre his death he had been a widower. By his last marriage he had a daughter.

The subject of this sketch was early in- itiated! into all the mysteries of specessfr! farming and was given go deltrat wal

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vantages, which he regrets that he did not improve to as good purpose as he might have done. He was a member of his fa- ther's household until he was about twenty- four years old, and in 1883. when he was twenty-six, he emigrated to Kansas. His father had come out in 1880 and bought a section of land on which five acres had been improved and on which a box shanty had been erected, in which he domiciled a ten- ant. The young man began his career in Kansas as a boarder with the tenant mien- tioned and is now farming three-quarters of the section which belongs to his father's un- settled estate, in which himself, his brother. William Ruth Swartley, and his half-sister, Anna Mary, are interested. The latter is the wife of Ervin Detwiler and lives in Pennsylvania.

In March. 1895. Mr. Swartley married Kate Rich, who was born in France in 1864 and came to the United States with her par- ents in 1882. She is the daughter of Chris- tian and Catharine ( Grober) Rich, natives of France. Her father died in Butler coun- ty. Kansas, in 1897, aged about fifty-four years, leaving a wife and ten children, and her mother lives in Oregon. John R. and Kate ( Rich ) Swartley have had children named as follows: Blanche, born in Febru- ary. 1896: Agnes, in March, 1897: and Warren, April 29, 1900. They have an adopted daughter, Lydia, who has been their own in everything but blood since she was nine days old. her mother having died then and her father. Gottleib Weiss, having died when she was only six months okl. She is a bright and comely child of nine years, and with her foster sister, Blanche, she is making good progress in educational lines.

Politically Mr. Swartley is a Republi- can, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he fills the offices of district steward and trus- tee. He holds membership in the Ancient Order of United Workmen. As a farmer he devotes himself to mixed husbandry and keeps from thirty to one hundred head of cattle and ten horses. He cultivates three hundred acres of land, sometimes devoting to wheat two hundred acres, which yield

twenty-five to thirty bushels an acre. and he is part proprietor of a steam thresher and separator. His farm is well supplied with buildings of all kinds, and he has a large and convenient residence, the newer portion of which was erected in 1900. His home is located a half mile east of Halstead on the bank of the Little Arkansas river. where . there is an ample natural forest.

Mr. Swartley is as enterprising in public matters as he is in private. Though he is not deeply interested in politics, he has dem- onstrated that he possesses a public spirit which is equal to all legitimate and reason- able demands.

ABIJAH S. CHEARS.

The progressive and successful farmer in section 22, Lake township, Harvey county, Kansas, whose postoffice is at Patterson, some account of whose career it will be at- tempted now to give, was born in Easton, Maryland. December 6, 1829. a son of Henry and Hester Ann ( De Lahay ) Chears.

Henry Chears was born in Easton, Mary- land. January 8. 1804, and died at Colum- bus, Ohio, in June, 1864. His grandfather was William Chears. His father was born near Belfast, Ireland, and his mother in London, England, and they were married shortly before they came to the United States, where Mr. Chears was successful as a shoemaker. They reared one daughter and two sons,-Archie. Henry and Henri- etta. The latter married, and died at the age of eighty-seven years, leaving one daughter. William Chears died in 1808 and his widow survived him for many years and did not marry again.

Hester Ann De Lahay, who married Henry Chears and became the mother of the subject of this sketch, was of French- Huguenot ancestors, and her grandfather in the paternal line, who came early to the American colonies, manufactured woolen goods for the Revolutionary army and took his pay in continental script .. Abijah S. Chears was the first born of his mother's three children. Her second son died in in- fancy. Her daughter Mary E. married and

BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY.

about twenty years ago went to San Fran- cisco, and her husband was in zen to death in the mountains of California while pros. pecting for gekl.

Mir. Chears received an ordinary com- m' n-school education, and after leaving He was a teacher for the terms, and since then has been engaged principally in paint- ing and paper hanging, except during his term of service in the Civil war. He en- listed September 15, 1861, at Camp Chase. near Columbus, Ohio, in Company K. First Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. as a private, and later was promoted to be quartermaster sergeant. He was in active service three Years and twenty-one days. On the 25th of July, 1862, he and one hundred and sev- enty-seven others were made prisoners of war at Courtland, Alabama, and within a week they were paroled at Moulton, that state. His first experience of battle was at Mill Springs, where General Zollicoffer was killed. After that he fought at Shiloh, then in several skirmishes, then at Corinth and after that all along the line to Blackland.

Mr. Chears was married November 29. 1852. to Catharine Ann Williamson, a na- tive of Ohio, and a daughter of Ralph and Margaret Ann ( Kechley ) Williamson. Mr. and Mrs. Chears have had two sons and two daughters, as follows: Their daughter Clara E. married a Mr. Dorney, and. wid- owed. is living with her father. She has a son and a daughter. Their son William Henry Chears has never married and dur- ing his active life has been something of a rover. He enlisted for service in the United States army during the Spanish war, but his regiment was not sent beyond the borders of the United States. Their daughter Ida May married Ai Bartlett, who died leaving a son and a daughter. Their son Ray Ed- win Chears is a local agent of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, at Larned, Kan- sas, and has a wife and one son. Catharine Ann ( Williamson ) Chears died March 25. 1892, aged sixty-two years, and in August following Mr. Chears journeved t Calif r- nia, where he remained for some time. hep- ing amid new environments and experiences to obtain at least partial relief from the feel-

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A biographical history of central Kansas, Vol. II, Part 41

Author: Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago Publication date: 1902 Publisher: New York Chicago: The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1084

Author: Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York Chicago: The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084